I consider demonstrated improvement when determining final grades. I tell students that I will round up at 89.5, 79.5, 69.5 if they have improved over the course of exam performance. Otherwise I hold a very firm line stating that there must always be a cut point.
While I can see that a students who has completed C B A A is improving a student who has had A A B C might be strategizing across all classes such that they need to devote more time in Calculus to get to a B while slipping in psychology will allow them to maintain a B (or even an A depending on point totals). It is often the best students who follow this strategy and who can blame them if they have the points. In another strategy, I have created created groups and offered extra credit to the group that shows the largest average improvement. My hope is that this will incentivize not only improving oneself but to encourage others. I’ve only done this once (this past spring) and all of the groups improved. Yes this rewards the group that improves the most but at least in my class the greatest improvement was for the group with the lowest starting score so the net result is more of a leveling rather than “the rich get richer” outcome. Note: the amount of extra credit was 2 points on that exam out of 600 points in the course so extra credit of about .33% in the whole class. The net gain from the competition was almost 4 points across the whole class and between 3. And 7 points per group (so what they gained from trying to earn those 2 points had more impact than the two points). I guess that could be called gasification. Doug P.S. I never considered exploring this more but after writing up this summer I think I’ll be submitting this to a teaching portion of my regional APA conference. On 8/10/16, 11:21 AM, "Michael Ofsowitz" <m...@rochester.rr.com> wrote: >First, forgive me for stepping out of a long-entrenched role as lurker. > >Do any of you have a system to formally grade/reward improvement on >course work (e.g., tests) as a component of the total course grade? > >In the background, I'm thinking that it must be possible to measure >student learning independent of IQ; my tests and other assignments >reward comprehension and expression mostly (they're written), so all of >that is conflated with IQ. But can there be an acceptable measure of >learning independent of IQ? So if a person who's poor at comprehension >improves from poor to low-mediocre, can something show that in a >rewarding way without cheapening the experience to gold stars or a >dumbed-down grading scale? > >I'm also thinking that getting a rewarding experience of extra points >that are real and meaningful can take some of the frustration away from >the student who gets low grades, without me having to play self-esteem >games. > >I was thinking something like extra credit points for improvement based >on a baseline of the first test score. (I also thought about punishment >for a high-IQ student who fails to make improvements, but I'm ignoring >this for now.) Can it be done fairly and meaningfully so the improving >student experiences it as reward? And can it be formalized into an Excel >gradebook? Is self-handicapping a potential problem if this is >formalized into the syllabus (e.g., strategic underperformance on the >first test)? How to avoid that? > >And how much credit? Someone who gets grades of A A A A on four tests >should have a final grade higher than the student who gets C B A A and >much more than the student who gets C- C+ B- B. I thought maybe B A A A >could be equivalent to A A A A after the "improvement" addition. I >wouldn't be bothered by that. > >I'll spare you the rest of my rambling thoughts. Any ideas? > > --> Mike O. > >Psychology >Monroe Community College, etc. etc. > > > >--- >You are currently subscribed to tips as: doug.peter...@usd.edu. >To unsubscribe click here: >http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=12991.6a54289b29ceb58cb7609cc50e0dc1c8&n=T&l=tips&o=49165 >or send a blank email to >leave-49165-12991.6a54289b29ceb58cb7609cc50e0dc...@fsulist.frostburg.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@mail-archive.com. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=49168 or send a blank email to leave-49168-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
